


The water was never afraid to touch you; even when you were at your most damaged and broken

by Gry_Gatevold



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And Now For Something Completely Different, F/M, Just making it up as I go, Prompt Fic, should continue writing something else but well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gry_Gatevold/pseuds/Gry_Gatevold
Summary: "When I wished to be part of the world of Harry Potter, I was hoping for an acceptance letter to Hogwarts, not for the bridge I was crossing to be demolished by death eaters on my way home from work"- random Tumblr PromptDraco sees the girl's car sink below the murky surface of the river and, with Rowle's sneer still in his ear, has to decide what kind of person he wants to be.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1
Collections: Prompt 002 - Water





	The water was never afraid to touch you; even when you were at your most damaged and broken

She absentmindedly drummed a lackluster beat on the steering wheel while glancing at the dashboard clock. Half past six already. She hated being stuck in traffic. _Don’t get worked up,_ she reminded herself, _it won’t change anything._ Instead, she tried focusing on the evening ahead. “What do I want to eat...I could make a salad. I could order in. I could – finally!”, she exclaimed, as the delivery van in front of her started driving. Her own car rolled after it, tentatively, not yet ready to believe it was really happening. But they managed yard after yard, and, giving in to foolish hope, she changed into second gear – just to slam the breaks seconds later. “Fuck fuck fuck”, she cursed at no one in particular, hitting the clutch and throwing her head back. Every fucking day. London really was the worst.

On the foot walk, happy and free people strolled in the evening sunshine, talking animatedly and licking ice cream, some dashing past on roller skates, others leaning against the bridge’s banister and gazing at the cool water below. For her, this goddamned bridge was the last bastion before she could turn right off the packed main street. If only she could make it to that point without losing her mind. Breathing out and giving in to her misery, she stared blankly out the side window. _Honk all you want idiots, it won’t get you there faster,_ she thought. Dark spots were suddenly visible in the sky above the river, like birds in formation. But weird.

She watched the tiny shapes fly closer, getting bigger all the time. _What kind of birds are those?,_ she wondered, brows furrowed as she lifted her head off the headrest to get a better look. They were unbelievably fast. And advancing straight towards the bridge. They were getting ever closer and for a fraction of a second she suddenly knew: _Those are people!,_ before a great BANG tore the world around her apart. Without thinking or planning or knowing she turned around, urging her brain to make sense of the situation. It was dark – where had the sun gone, it was such a summery day? But the bright day was no more, nor were the happy people frolicking after work.

Instead, soot and dust billowed over the cars ahead. Frantic screams replaced the honking but she couldn’t make out the source. And while she was still processing it all, her seat began to vibrate. The door handle – she must have grabbed it in an instinct to flee – rattled in her hand. She let go of it and stared, disbelievingly, through the windscreen. The cars were standing as packed as ever, so the back of the white van in front of her was all she could see.

And she watched as it slowly, almost gracefully, tipped its hood into the gigantic hole, the rear window raising into the air in mockery of the little Red Bull sticker glued to it, then being pulled down. There was nothing she could do, but at least her brain had started working again. She knew what would happen next. _Plane crash,_ she thought, ripping her gaze away from the abyss and cowering down onto her seat, heads above her head, eyes closed tightly.

She could feel the fall in her stomach. Funny how she had always hated that sensation – in roller coasters or even fast elevators – and now it would be the last thing she ever felt. _Fucking hilarious,_ she thought cynically, right before the impact of her car on the water pushed all the air out of her lungs and eradicated the light sensation. Everything went dark.

The water surrounding her windows was murky and grey as she came to, rubble impacting next to her like hail, car parts bouncing on the foaming surface of the river. Water was streaming into the interior through a hole in the floor. Her jeans were already soaked to the knees.

With slightly trembling hands, she unbuckled her seatbelt. _Out, I have to get out,_ she thought, willing herself not to panic. There was no telling what would happen outside, with the bridge over her collapsing and dozens of terrified people in the water, but everything was better than staying trapped inside a slowly sinking car. She turned towards the door and pulled at the handle. Nothing happened. _The water pressure is too high, with the inside being filled with air,_ she reasoned. That made sense. It was just fucking terrible news, but it did make sense. She tried the window down button, but to no avail. Her old car had had a manual crank to open the windows. And she had sold it for safety reasons. Ha ha.

She definitely was starting to panic now. Tearing at the handle. Trying to reignite the engine to move the window. Scooting over to the passenger side and repeating the fruitless attempt. Crawling back, lying flat on the seats and kicking at the windscreen to break it. All the time sinking, slowly, below the opaque surface of the river. She even banged against the windows, screaming for help. But who was there to help?

When everything but the roof was submerged and the merest sliver of light shone through the last centimeter of unobstructed glass the energy drained out of her. _So many people in there with me,_ she thought, _yet I am completely alone._ More alone, in fact, than she had ever been. The cold water crawled up her torso, making her shiver.

And as the car gracefully tipped and descended towards the rocky bottom she was forcefully reminded of that scene in “I,Robot”, where the little girl was trapped inside the car after a crash and not rescued. The shot of that girl disappearing into the abyss had always haunted her and now she was about to become her. Just that nobody saw.

But someone saw.

He was standing next to Rowle on a nearby roof as they watched the bridge collapse, some of them cheering at the chaos, some peering intently through their omnioculars, Amycus Carrow sneering at the people panicking in the water.

Draco didn’t cheer and didn’t sneer. His eyes were wide in shock as he tried to understand what had just happened. _What I have done,_ he thought. Somehow the reality of the situation had never occurred to him – they had been supposed to demolish a muggle landmark to show Cornelius Fudge that the Dark Lord meant business. It had sounded like a mere symbolic act. Big architecture, a big splash, attention grabbing tv footage.

And now he was standing in the soft evening light as below him, dozens of people were dying. He didn’t need magnifying glasses to see the panic in their faces as they tried to stay afloat, tried to escape their cars that had become slowly sinking death traps, tried to dodge the bricks still impacting everywhere on the river. And he had caused it.

“Nice blasting curse, Draco”, Rowle said to him, nudging his elbow into Draco’s side, “I’m rather a _bombarda-_ guy myself, but I must admit you did some real damage to the support pillars. Did what –“, and now he shouted towards another death eater with dark circles under hungry eyes, “collapse that part in the front right there?”, as he pointed at a particularly big hole. “Yes”, answered Dolohov solemnly, “those six cars, I think it is, are your work, Draco. The Dark Lord will be pleased. Very pleased indeed. He was beginning to fear you don’t have it in you.”

Rowle nudged him in the side again, apparently to congratulate him, then offered him a pair of omnioculars. Not knowing what to do or say, Draco took them. He could feel a knot form in his throat and his eyes were burning. _Pull yourself together, for Merlin’s sake,_ he told himself, _they are only muggles!_ Only muggles. Yes. Stupid, low life creatures not worth to share this world with wizards like them. If only they didn’t look so desperate.

To busy himself and not rouse suspicion, he lifted the omnioculars in front of his eyes and looked down. Almost immediately, the terror of the scene unfolded right before him and close, so close he thought he could smell the stinking water, the burnt scent of drowning car engines. The knot in his throat expanded into his stomach. His eyes, nose, heart stung. His mouth was dry. He couldn’t swallow. Neither could he look away. Draco had located the spot his blasting spell had hit the bridge. A gaping hole with blackened edges, big enough to pull six cars into their watery grave.

Not able to stop himself, he turned a small cog on the omnioculars and zoomed onto the surface of the river below.

A white delivery van was floating upside down, brown packages bobbing up and down all around it. The driver, it seemed, had managed to open the sliding door and now tried to climb on top of his van. A big black SUV had crashed into the support structure below the bridge and while out of the water, it didn’t look good for the driver. Draco could see him slumped behind the wheel, his head scarlet on top of a white, inflated air bag. Three more cars had already vanished underwater, only green and blue parts of the car bodies remaining on the foamy surface. Some yards away, several people were frantically swimming away from the falling rubble and Draco could kid himself into believing that they had all made it out alive.

Then he saw the sixth car, or what was left of it. A boxy black estate, its windows closed and still above the water, the rest already gone under. Draco couldn’t make out any sign of life on the inside and momentarily thought it was empty. He zoomed even closer, searching the driver’s side, when he suddenly saw it: A hand, banging against the window. Frantic. A face emerged behind the hand, with wide eyes and an open mouth. The girl was clearly screaming.

On top of the roof, Draco froze. He couldn’t move a muscle as he stared, unblinkingly, through his omnioculars. He saw the girl attempting to break the glass of the windscreen. He felt himself urging her on, wishing with all his might that she could _just make it._ But, still immobilised, he had to watch her sink lower and lower. Until only the black roof was visible in the water.

Until it, too, sank.


End file.
